Revision History | ||
---|---|---|
Revision 2.0 | 2003-06-02 | Revised by: ih |
2.0 is out. | ||
Revision 1.64 | 2003-06-01 | Revised by: ih |
YellowDog 3.0 (Sirius) is availble through dist-upgrade | ||
Revision 1.63 | 2003-05-26 | Revised by: ih |
Main parts of Suse, Yellowdog and Debian and Mandrake done. | ||
Revision 1.62 | 2003-02-26 | Revised by: ih |
Working on complete new version with several distributions. | ||
Revision 1.6 | 2002-12-19 | Revised by: ih |
Change from LinuxPPC to other distributions, first sketch | ||
Revision 1.52 | 2001-08-29 | Revised by: ih |
Added a chapter on Linux 2.4. Fixed some dead and wrong links. Fixed a lot of typos. | ||
Revision 1.51 | 2001-04-06 | Revised by: ih |
Download site for LinuxPPC-2000 Q4 cd images | ||
Revision 1.50 | 2001-02-06 | Revised by: ih |
Now supports LinuxPPC-2000 Q4 | ||
Revision 1.40 | 2000-12-14 | Revised by: ih |
Translated to SGML. This is the initial release for LDP |
This document describes how to install GNU/Linux on the IBM RS/6000 43P 7248 series, that is, the 43P-100, 43P-120 and 43P-133. It describes quite in detail anything to get one of these boxes from a non working stage to a networked workstation with a nice graphical user interfase. This relase covers several Linux distributions. Earlier, this document described the installation of several Linux distributions. Earlier, it only covered the LinuxPPC distribution, which is now obsolete. If you, for any particular reason, should be interested in versions of LinuxPPC, please have a look at my homepage .
Some years ago I got a couple of old 7248s for free and I did not have any OS to run on them. So I gathered some bits and pieces from the net, and got it to install LinuxPPC-1999. Later, I found that a lot of other people may have the same problems that I had, so I wrote this document to help. Later I rewrote it in SGML and it is now a part of the LDP.
This document is copyrighted (C) 2003 Ingvar Hagelund and is distributed under the terms of the Linux Documentation Project (LDP) licence, stated below.
Unless otherwise stated, Linux HOWTO documents are copyrighted by their respective authors. Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would like to be notified of any such distributions.
All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice. That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the Linux HOWTO coordinator at the address given below.
In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to redistribute the HOWTOs.
If you have any questions, please contact <linux-howto@metalab.unc.edu>
"Linux" is a registrated trademark owned by Linus Torvalds. "IBM" and "RS/6000" are trademarks owned by IBM Corporation. "MS-DOS" is a trademark owned by Microsoft Corporation.
Updated: June 1, 2003.
This document is made after own experiences on a 43P 7248-132. The things I did might or might not work for you. You are on your own. I take no responsibility whatsoever for any damage, loss or expenses because of something you might have done because this document said so. If you want to give me feedback on errors, typos, or anything that can make this document better, please feel free to contact me by sending an e-mail to <ingvar@linpro.no>
No liability for the contents of this documents can be accepted. Use the concepts, examples and other content at your own risk. As this is a new edition of this document, there may be errors and inaccuracies, that may of course be damaging to your system. Proceed with caution, and although this is highly unlikely, I do not take any responsibility for that.
This document is about installing GNU/Linux on the IBM RS/6000 43P, model 7248. The methods described in this document may or may not work on other machines or models. They may or may not work on other Linux distributions than described. Please don't ask me about this, as I have not tested others. Look in the Section 11 for other resources on this. If you find that these instructions work on other models or distributions, please let me know, and I'll add that info here.
All copyrights are held by their by their respective owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.
You are strongly recommended to take a backup of your system before major installation and backups at regular intervals.
Note that the 7248-132 and the 43P-133 are two terms for the same model, and the same goes for 7248-133 which I've also seen referenced from time to time. These three terms describes the exactly same model. You can safly assume that they are all the same machine.
If you feel that this document makes your life better, makes you glad and happy, or if you just are in a good mood, and have nothing to do, feel free to donate hardware, money, pizzas, e-mailed thankyous, postcards or anything to me. I can be reached at:
e-mail: <ingvar@linpro.no>
snail-mail: Ingvar Hagelund, Asperudlia 15, NO-1258 OSLO, NORWAY.
Version 2.0
2.0 is finally out.
Lots of updates. Now supports Debian, Mandrake, SuSE and YellowDog.
Version 1.64
YellowDog 3.0 (Sirius) is availble through a dist-upgrade
Heading for 2.0.
Version 1.63
Most parts of Mandrake, YellowDog, SuSE and Debian are done
Heading for 2.0.
Version 1.62
Working on complete new version with several distributions
Heading for 2.0.
Version 1.61
Added an appendix on making SMS and firmware images from Linux
Version 1.60
First sketch for other distributions
Version 1.52
Added a chapter on Linux-2.4
Fixed some wrong links and typos
Version 1.51
Download site for LinuxPPC-2000 Q4 cd images
Version 1.50
Updated to cover LinuxPPC-2000 Q4
Version 1.41:
Made some small changes to the kernel chapter.
Version 1.40:
Added a FAQ section.
Reformatted howto to SGML.
New copyright notices.
Ready for bundling with the LPD.
If you are reading an offline version of this document, please note that an up to date HTML version can be found at http://users.linpro.no/ingvar/43p.
A lot of people have given me suggestions and help on these pages. I might have forgotten some of them, and if so, I apologize. Please send me a note to me at <ingvar@linpro.no>, and I'll list you here. Thanks to all of you, I could not have done this without you.
Ingvar
Here is list of people that have been helpful, in a completely unordered fashion :-)
Ingvar Hagelund
James Rooker
Mike McCammant
Alberto Varesio
Rolf Brudeseth
Ian Dale
Hollis R Blanchard
Linar Yusupov
Cort Dougan
Roger Bonussen
Rolf Zimmerli
Philippe Senot
John Roebuck
Jacopo Silva
Martin Espenschied
Dan Burcaw
www.linuxppc.com
Tor Arne Rein
Chien-Yu Chen
Wadamori Naoki
Arne Chr. Jørgensen
Doc Shipley
Thomas M. Nymand
Alberto Varesio
Pat Berge
Kazunori Aoshima
David Monro
Matt Porter
Olaf Hering
Xavier Piednoir
Steve Cornett
Greg Ferguson
Nader Salasshahri
Thomas Junker
Feedback is most certainly welcome for this document. Without your submissions and input, this document wouldn't exist. Please send your additions, comments and criticisms to the following e-mail address : <ingvar@linpro.no>.
This chapter contains a short overview over the 7248-133 and Linux for PowerPC. The data for the other 7248 models should not be too different from this.
The IBM RS/6000 43P model 7248-133 is a not extremely new PReP based PowerPC workstation which was produced from 1995 through 1997. The 43P series includes a lot of machines, both CHRP and PReP based. Our model has among other things this to offer:
PReP architecture
Carolina type motherboard
133MHz PowerPC model 604 processor
512K synchronous L2 cache
Max 192MB RAM (?)
Integrated ncr53c810 SCSI-2 controller
Integrated IDE controller
Integrated AMD PCnet32 PCI ethernet adapter
Integrated IBM E15 2MB graphics adapter based on the S3 Vision864 chip
Integrated Crystal Audio cs4232 sound adapter
1.44MB Floppy disk drive
IBM 8X SCSI CD-ROM drive
Usually equipped with one 1.2GB IBM DPES 31080 SCSI hardisk
You can find more information at IBM's sales manual for this machine, found at http://www.ibmlink.ibm.com/. (click "United States", "SalesManual", "Continue", and search for the product number "7248" at the bottom)
Linux has a native port to the PowerPC processor, and all official code is maintained in the main kernel tree. The main part of the port was done by Gary Thomas. The story of the port can be found here. For more information on running Linux on the PowerPC processor, check out the Linux/PPC homepage/.
Most Linux distributions for PowerPC computers are aimed for the Apple PowerMac computer series. Those who support other hardware seems (naturally enough) to aim at quite modern hardware. The IBM 7248 series are not Macintosh computers nor very modern (although neither very old). This means that the standard kernels, the standard installation routines, and the standard system configurations do not fit our precious 7248 computers.
You should absolutely make no worries about this at all. We'll make a few hacks, some manual configuration, and make it work anyway. Don't despair, this document will lead you through it, step by step.
The term "supported" here is maybe too strong, as few distributions actually support the 7248. I will however in this document try to describe how to install the following Linux distributions on the 7248:
Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 ("Woody")
SuSE 7.3
YellowDog Linux 2.3/3.0 ("Dayton"/"Sirius")
Mandrake 9.1 ("Bamboo")
Some may ask where RedHat Linux is. RedHat does simply not support 32 bits PowerPC processors at all, so end of story. (Though there did exist a version of RedHat 7.2 for some special IBM PowerPC based hardware. It was never a success.) Those who are familiar with RedHat Linux should be quite content with YellowDog anyway, as it is based on RedHat, and feels very similar in use.
You should be able to build a Gentoo or Linux From Scrath installation on the 7248. See the respective Gentoo and LFS web sites for more information. You should probably be able to use some of the information given in this document, but I have personally never buildt a Gentoo or LFS installation, and probably never will, so no details on those will be given in this document.
Here is what we are going to do:
Set up the hardware properly ("BIOS settings") with IBM's System Management Services (SMS)
Get installation files from CD or FTP
Make boot floppies
Get the machine to boot and start the installation program
Partition the hard drives
Install the system
Boot the system
Update the kernel
Set up X
This chapter describes how to configure the system's Firmware to use the hardware properly. To do this we are going to use a software tool from IBM called System Management Services, SMS.
Lots of Linux users are familiar with the x86 platform, and immidiatly ask "What key may I press to access the BIOS". Well, on the 7248 it's not that easy, but it's not very difficult either. This is a real UNIX machine, and real UNIX machines don't have a BIOS. They have some sort of Firmware instead. There is not much to yell about, 'cause to the users, it's almost the same thing. Firmware often seem to have lots of bugs in them, just like the BIOSes in the PC world. They often are more selective on what kind of hardware they support too. For hardware system management on our 7248, IBM has a software program to be booted from floppy disk, called "SMS" - "System Management Services". With this you can access the Firmware. You can get images for SMS and for updated firmware here. You should select MS-DOS images from the menu. They are actually zip-files in disguise, so you should be able to make those disks from a Linux box as well, using unzip and mtools. (If you feel totally lost on this, I wrote a quick help, look in Section 17)
To boot the SMS, turn off the machine, insert the SMS floppy, push the power button and press the F4 key while the system check icons pop up in the bottom of the screen. (If you prefer a text based interface, try F2 instead.) Basic usage is outside the scope of this document, but it's not very difficult.
You should have a little look over your system to see whats actually there. Then you should check the boot sequence, as it's quite important to make your system boot right. The sequence should be: (You guessed it) Floppy disk -> CD-player -> first SCSI harddisk -> second SCSI harddisk -> etc.
You might find good references in IBM's sales manual, some clicking and searching from here.
There are also some reference manuals in pdf format for free download from the IBM RS/6000 pages that might come handy.
This chapter describes how to get your hands on a copy of one or several Linux distributions able to run on the 7248.
Debian GNU/Linux
Buying Debian CDs for PPC might be a tricky one. You should scan this list for availble local (or shipping) resellers of Debian CDs, and ask them for a PPC distribution. You may be lucky.
SuSE
You should be able to find a local reseller, or buy directly off the net, try this link.
YellowDog Linux
You should be able to find a local reseller, or buy directly off the net, try this link
Mandrake
You should be able to find a local reseller, or buy directly off the net. Try this link: http://www.mandrakesoft.com
The other way around is to download preformatted CD images, and burn them out yourself.
Before downloading installation images or doing a network installation, please consider buying boxed set, or services from the respective parties. Companies and organizations building Free Software needs support and money to survive.
Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 "Woody"
Find download sites for Debian GNU/Linux ISO images here. Please use a local mirror. Remember to pick the right platform, "powerpc".
SuSE 7.3
Download the SuSE installer cd here.
YellowDog Linux 2.3 "Dayton"
ISO images for YellowDog Linux 2.3 are availble for download from YellowDog's FTP site or from linuxiso.org. Only the first CD of the CD set is availble, but that's all you will need to install. Afterwards, you may want to upgrade the system over the net. You may also dist-upgrade to version 3.0 ("Sirius"). This is described in Section 14.
Mandrake Linux 9.1 ("Bamboo")
ISO images for Mandrake Linux 9.1 for PPC are availble for download at Mandrake's download page, please use a local mirror. You can also download from linuxiso.org
To make a CD, you need some CD burning software package. This is outside the scope of this document, allthough any decent CD burning software on any platform should be able to do it.
All distributions mentioned in this document are able to do a network installation except for YellowDog. For the other distributions, both installation from CD and over the network will be described. The Mandrake installation is special, because it needs a local mirror, made from a complete ftp site mirror or from the CDs, see below.
All installation methods described in this document will be initiated with a floppy disk boot image. The 7248 is also capable of booting over the net (via tftp), and of course, by cdrom. This will not be covered in the following.
Before downloading installation images or doing a network installation, please consider buying boxed set, or services from the respective parties. Companies and organizations building Free Software needs support and money to survive.
Both installing via net or CD needs bootstrapping with floppy disks. In this chapter we will learn where to get floppy images, and how to make useable boot floppies from them.
First we need a boot floppy. This will be a custom compiled Linux kernel image able to boot on the 7248. Then we need one or more ramdisk images.
Debian Woody
For Debian, we need a boot floppy and one ramdisk floppy. You can download necessary files from http://users.linpro.no/ingvar/43p/images/Debian/ . The files are called debian-7248-boot.img and debian-7248-ramdisk.img . (The ramdisk image is the root.bin from Debian boot-floppies)
Yellow Dog Dayton
For Yellow Dog we need a boot floppy, and no less than three ramdisk floppies, because of the size of the installer. I have built custom ramdisk images for the 7248. The files are called ydl-7248-boot.img, ydl-7248-ramdisk-1.img, ydl-7248-ramdisk-2.img and ydl-7248-ramdisk-3.img, and are available from http://users.linpro.no/ingvar/43p/images/YellowDog/. You will need all the ramdisk files.
SuSE 7.3
For SuSE, we need a boot floppy and one ramdisk floppy. You can download necessary files from http://users.linpro.no/ingvar/43p/images/SuSE/ . The files are called suse-7248-boot.img and suse-7248-ramdisk.img. (The latter is copied from ftp.suse.com)
Mandrake Bamboo
For Mandrake, we need a boot floppy and one ramdisk floppy. You can download necessary files from http://users.linpro.no/ingvar/43p/images/Mandrake/ . The files are called mdk-7248-boot.img and mdk-7248-ramdisk.img. (The latter is a copy of the all-r6sk.gz from the Mandrake cd)
If you use Netscape or another web browser to download the files, you should check that the sizes of the downloaded files are correct. Some versions of Netscape tend to uncompress compressed files, and we want to keep them compressed. If strange things things happen at boot time, try using another program for downloading the files, like wget or lynx.
Use always errorfree 1.44MB floppies for these images. The commands shown here is for a working Linux system. They might work on other UNIX systems as well. On some systems you may have to be root to write directly to the floppy drive. In those cases, so du a 'su root' before issuing the commands.
MS-DOS users may use the rawrite utility. You can download rawrite from several places, for example a RedHat mirror as ftp://ftp.uninett.no/. More information on how to use rawrite here.
To make the boot floppy, insert a floppy in the drive, cd to the directory containing the boot floppy image and issue the following command, substitute "debian" to your distributon prefix if necessary.
dd if=debian-7248-boot.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=36b |
To make a ramdisk floppy, insert a floppy in the drive, cd to the directory containing the ramdisk image, and issue the following command. Substitute the filename with an image for your distribution of choice, like "ydl-7248-ramdisk-2.img" for the second YellowDog ramdisk floppy image.
dd if=debian-7248-ramdisk.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=36b |
In this chapter we will find out how to get the installation program up and running.
Below we will be asked about what partitions to make. We should have at least these partitions:
A PReP partition. It should be the first primary partition on one of the SCSI drives, preferably the first (this naming the partition to sda1). It must have type PReP boot (type 41), and must be large enough to hold a compressed Linux kernel image (zImage). Something like 5-10MB should do.
A swap partition. It can be either a primary or a logical partition on any drive. Any size will do, but a guide may be twice the size of you physical RAM. I have 64MB RAM, so I have a swap partition on 128MB.
A system root partition. It can be either a primary or a logical partition, and it should be big enough to hold the main parts of the installation. You should write down the device (disk and partition number, like sda5, for example) for your system's root partition. You will need it later. The easy way is just to use the rest of the harddisk space for this. If you have several harddisks, big drives or special requirements on safety and other things, you should consider to make own partitions for /home, /usr, /usr/local, and other parts of the system. Details on this is outside the scope of this document, but there is a good discussion on this in the Linux Partition HOWTO.
You may of course add as many other partitions to your system as you may wish, but this is the very minimum.
It is a VERY good tip to find a piece of paper and write down which partitions you have made, what you want to use them to, and where you want to mount them. You will need this information later.
For Debian and SuSE, we will use the cfdisk program for partitioning. For those unfamiliar with cfdisk and partitioning in general, I have made two small appendices on this, just because I am a very kind person. See Section 15.
To boot the 7248, just insert the boot floppy and turn the machine on. If it won't boot off the floppy drive, check SMS settings (Section 3), and try to force a floppy boot by pressing F5 (or F6) at the bootscreen while the check icons pop up in the bottom of the screen. After a while, the screen blanks out, and Linux will boot. At this point, you can shout a little "hooray" for yourself, if there are not too many in the room, and Tux, the Linux Penguin will show up in the upper left corner of the screen. Insert the ramdisk floppies when prompted.
You should just walk through the Debian installer like you would on any Debian installation. More information on how to use the installer can be found at your favourite Debian mirror, a good reference should be this document. You would maybe start here as you already have been walked through the preliminary steps. There are a few thing to remember though:
Not all keyboard layouts are availble in the installer. Pick one you are able to use. We will have more to choose from once the system is installed.
At the "Partition a Hard Disk" step, our partition program will be cfdisk. At this step we have to add the PReP partition as mentioned above, a swap partition and a root partition. Remember to write down on a piece of paper what partition to use for the root filesystem. Unless you have a really good memory, of course.
The steps "Install Kernel and Driver Modules", "Configure Device Driver modules", "Configure PCMCIA Support", and "Install Foreign Modules" can be skipped, as all necessary driver are compiled into the boot floppy kernel.
When installing the base system, we can choose either network or cdrom. Both should work. (I have even installed by floppy once, but this is something we really don't want to do.)
Skip the steps "Make System bootable" and "Make a Boot Floppy" - they won't work. See the later chapter Section 9.5 on how to make the system boot from the harddisk.
No bootloader will be installed, as there are no availble bootloader for the PReP PPC platform (except the one that's piggybacked onto the kernel). After the installation is done, you will therefore have to boot again from a floppy. See the next chapter for details.
When you are finished installing the base system, reinsert the boot floppy and choose "Reboot the system".
The SuSE installer should work without any hassle at all. Prelimenary, I've only done ftp install, but any installation method should do, provided you have access to the media. I have not been able to find an online version of the installation instructions, but it should be quite strightforward. If you have bought the boxed set, you have probably got a printed manual on dead trees. A few things to look up for anyhow:
When partition the hard disks, remember to make a PReP boot partition as described above. As a general rule, use /dev/sda1 for this.
If we're doing a ftp install, use the following path from a SuSE mirror root: suse/ppc/current/. An European mirror is available at 194.71.11.20 (ftp.sunet.se) in /pub/Linux/distributions/suse/suse/ppc/current/ . An American mirror is availble at 140.221.9.138 (mirror.mcs.anl.gov) in /pub/ftp.suse.com/ppc/current/ . There is a list of other mirrors here
The download progress bar is broken on slow links, so we don't care about it unless we're connected to a fat pipe. Have patience.
When the installation is finished, we may get a blank screen with nothing but a blinking cursor. Ensure that the installation is done (check for availble shells or status screens at VT2, 3 and 4. by pressing Alt+F2,F3,F4,F1, there should be none). Reinsert the boot floppy and power-cycle the box.
No bootloader will be installed, as there are no availble bootloader for the PReP PPC platform (except the one that's piggybacked onto the kernel). After the installation is done, you will therefore have to boot again from a floppy. See the next chapter for details.
Just before the installer starts, I have added a small pre-installation routine. Please follow the on-screen instrucions. For someone who has done some sysadmin earlier, the steps should be quite easy. For the beginner, it should not be to difficult. Hop to a virtual terminal by hitting Alt+F2. Type
cfdisk /dev/sda |
mke2fs /dev/sda3 |
You should walk through the installer as you would walk through any Yellow Dog installation (though only text-based interface is availble). I have not found any comprehensive online installation manual, but there is some info here. If you have bought a boxed set, you should open the box and Read The Fine Manual if you have questions not answered here.
There are a few things to look out for, though:
At the "Installing Profile Selection" screen (one of the first screens), choose "Custom".
At the "Installation Setup" screen, only "Local CD/DVD" is availble, so we'll have to choose ... well, you guessed it.
At the "Partition Disks" screen, we "Edit" each disk, but just choose "Save" in the subscreens. "Add" and "Delete" won't work. And besides, we already have done this, haven't we?
At the "Package Selection" screen, choose "Base Install", unless you have a full CD set. The downloadable CD image has only the base install packages.
At the "Sound Setup" screen, we'll get an error message saying we are not one of those lucky bastards owning a Power Macintosh computer. As this is something we should be ashamed of. Ignore, sniff, and select "Ok". We'll fix sound later.
At the "PReP Bootloader Installation" screen, the installer yells that it can't find a PReP partition. A little strange, as we just made one. (We did, remember to do that, didn't we?). This installer just can't get it, so continue to ignore it. Select "Ok".
The "X11 Configuration" screen just flips by, so I guess that part was painless. Yeah, right.
No bootloader will be installed, as there are no availble bootloader for the PReP PPC platform (except the one that's piggybacked onto the kernel). After the installation is done, you will therefore have to boot again from a floppy. See the next chapter for details.
For the Mandrake installer, there are a few quite extensive prerequisites necessary. For a CD install, we need to replace the installer program on the first CD before burning out the CD ISO image. For a network install, we need a complete local ftp or http mirror, made from the Mandrake Bamboo ppc ftp directory, or the three CDs. Actually, we only need to replace one single file, but because the installer is unable to change package source during the installation (this is one reason why Debian is a wonderful distribution), we need local copies of all the files.
If we don't like to hazzle around and tune things, we'll stick to the CD installation. It's the easiest.
First we have to download the three Mandrake ISO images from your favourite mirror. There exist ppc ISO images at least at a Sweedish mirror at ftp://ftp.chello.se/pub/linux/Mandrake-iso/ppc/.
Then we must change the first image by replacing the installer inside it. This could be done on any operating system able to mount a CD ISO image. The instructions below are made for running on RedHat Linux. We presume the images are all put in /var/tmp.
First we mount the image by the loopback interface
mount -o loop=/dev/loop0 /var/tmp/MandrakeLinux-9.1-CD1.ppc.iso /mnt/cdrom |
mkdir /var/tmp/bamboo1 cp -va /mnt/cdrom/* /var/tmp/bamboo1 umount /mnt/cdrom |
cd /var/tmp/bamboo1/Mandrake/base rm mdkinst_stage2.bz2 wget http://users.linpro.no/ingvar/43p/images/Mandrake/mdkinst_stage2.bz2 |
cd /var/tmp mkisofs -r -o MandrakeLinux-9.1-CD1.ppc.iso bamboo1/ rm -rf bamboo1 |
First you need a local http or ftp mirror with a patched installer. This means that you need access to another computer able to run a web or ftp server. Any Linux distribution can do. A modern Windows or UNIX server should also be able to do the job. The trick is to download all necessary files, and change the installer file Mandrake/base/mdkinst_stage2.bz with a patched one. Below the the steps to get this done with the Apache web server on a RedHat Linux installtion, and with the CD iso image files, is described. (A complete download of the ppc archive from a Mandrake ftp mirror should work allright too, but I prefer to have the iso images availble.)
Unless already done, install and start the Apache web server on the system. This is described in the RedHat documentation. Then download the three Mandrake CD images from your favourite mirror. There exist ppc iso images at least at a Sweedish mirror at ftp://ftp.chello.se/pub/linux/Mandrake-iso/ppc/.
cd /somwhere/with/plenty/space wget ftp://your.favourite.mirror/path/to/MandrakeLinux-9.1-CD1.ppc.iso wget ftp://your.favourite.mirror/path/to/MandrakeLinux-9.1-CD2.ppc.iso wget ftp://your.favourite.mirror/path/to/MandrakeLinux-9.1-CD3.ppc.iso |
mkdir /mnt/bamboo1 /mnt/bamboo2 /mnt/bamboo3 /var/www/html/bamboo mount -o loop=/dev/loop1 MandrakeLinux-9.1-CD1.ppc.iso /mnt/bamboo1 mount -o loop=/dev/loop2 MandrakeLinux-9.1-CD2.ppc.iso /mnt/bamboo2 mount -o loop=/dev/loop3 MandrakeLinux-9.1-CD3.ppc.iso /mnt/bamboo3 cd - |
for i in base mdkinst share; do cp -va /mnt/bamboo1/Mandrake/$i /var/www/html/bamboo/Mandrake; done ln -s /mnt/bamboo1/Mandrake/RPMS1 /var/www/html/bamboo/Mandrake ln -s /mnt/bamboo2/Mandrake/RPMS2 /var/www/html/bamboo/Mandrake ln -s /mnt/bamboo3/Mandrake/RPMS3 /var/www/html/bamboo/Mandrake |
cd /var/www/html/bamboo/Mandrake/base mv mdkinst_stage2.bz2 mdkinst_stage2.orig.bz2 wget http://users.linpro.no/ingvar/43p/images/Mandrake/mdkinst_stage2.bz2 cd - |
You will get an error when probing for a network and scsi drivers. The driver module files don't exist. We don't worry, as all necessary drivers are compiled into the running kernel.
If all package files necessary are availble, the installer should run without further errors.
The installer won't recognize the sound card, so sound won't work. Don't worry about this. We'll fix it in a jiffy. Same goes for XFree86, so we won't automagically get a working graphical user interface either.
No bootloader will be installed, as there are no availble bootloader for the PReP PPC platform (except the one that's piggybacked onto the kernel). After the installation is done, you will therefore have to boot again from a floppy disk. See the next chapter for details.
In this chapter we will boot our fresh installed system for the first time, and learn how to finnish the post-installation configuration of the various systems.
If everything worked, you should now be able to reboot you're system, and start your freshly installed Linux system for the first time. Reinsert the boot floppy disk in the floppy drive, and switch the machine on again. If it won't boot, try to hit F5 at the splash screen while the system check icons pop up in the bottom of the screen. At the boot prompt, ("Linux/PPC load:") you must add a boot parameter to make the system find your root partition. (That's usually the main system partition.) Press backspace to remove what's already there, and add something like this:
root=/dev/sda3 |
Note that we have to use this routine every time we boot machine, until we make our own kernel that suits the installation we just finished. This is described in Section 9
The system should boot up and maybe even doing some post configuration, see below.
The post installation configuration of Debian is described in detail in the document ch-init-config-en.html at your favourite Debian mirror. If you have cleared all previous stages, you get 400 bonus points, and can skip directly to paragraph 8.3.
By some strange reason, the Debian installer doesn't set up the network according to the fixes in the installer. If you want to use apt over a network connection, you should jump to a virtual screen (Alt+F2), log in as root, and set up networking. This is done by editing the file /etc/networking/interfaces , but the syntax of that file is way out of scope for this document. More information should be found in the Debian documentationm. Use the command
man interfaces |
ifup eth0 |
The post installation configuration of SuSE should be quite painless. Make up a root password and enter it twice. Done. The rest should run automagically. Nice, eh?
YellowDog Linux does not have any post installation issues at all, except the expected kernel errors caused by lacking module directories. What a cool operating system! Look in Section 9 for detailed instructions on how to compile and install a working kernel.
There is some info at this url if we want to dig into more configuration. But we want to read the following chapters first.
Before taking another step you should go to a silent chamber and think: "I've got Yellow Dog 2.3. YES! But should I be content with that, now when YellowDog 3.0 is out? Should I really?" If the answer to that question is "No" then skip to Section 14. If you pass over the start field in the movement, you'll receive $2000 and a hotel.
Not much to mention here. The system should work more or less out of the box. Wow! You will probably get some errors on lacking kernel files. You will learn how to compile and install a complete kernel in Section 9. You may want to (re)configure your network. There does exist a tool called "drakconnect" that should be able to do this, but I never got it to behave. Configuring the local network is easy though. Just fire up your favourite editor (at least vi is installed) and edit the files mentioned below. This example describes a static ip configuration. Generally, this is the "RedHat" way to do things, so examples and documentation should be easy to find.
/etc/sysconfig/network
NETWORKING=YES HOSTNAME=barky GATEWAY=192.168.0.1 |
DEVICE=eth0 BOOTPROTO=static BROADCAST=192.168.0.255 IPADDR=192.168.0.5 NETMASK=255.255.255.0 ONBOOT=YES |
nameserver 192.168.0.2 |
I'm no Mandrake Guru. I actually never use Mandrake, and fixed the installer just for the exercise. By some reason, eth0 doesn't get active at boot time with the configuration above, though it does after a 'ifdown eth0; ifup eth0', so I just put that in my rc.local. Go figure.
After the post installation configuration, the system should boot up to a ready state, and greet you with a login prompt. Congratulations, you have installed GNU/Linux on your 7248. You are dismissed to have a beer or a cup of tea. Or even coffee. From here, you have to know how to use linux. This is absolutely outside the scope of this document, but if you are a complete newbie, you could for example check out Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide by Machtelt Garrels.
The following only affects 2.2 kernels.
Note that there is a bug somewhere that makes the netcard freeze the whole system when shutting down eth0. According to Martin Espenschied, this is a known issue, and can be fixed. When I know how, I'll put the information here. Till then, remember to sync your system before shutting down, and you should not miss any information. Remember my disclaimer in Section 1.2 though.
An ugly hack to resolve this might just be to NOT to shut down eth0 at shutdown/reboot. This can be done by editing the file /etc/init.d/network (or similar), and in the stop) case, just comment away the ifdown command, and add a phoney command, like this:
action "Shutting down interface $i" echo does_nothing # ./ifdown $i boot |
In this chapter we will download the Linux kernel sources, add a few patches, and compile and install our own custom kernel on the harddisk. When we have successfully accomplished this exciting event, we don't have to boot from the installation boot floppy anymore.
The kernel we have used this far is a complete 2.4 (2.2 for YellowDog) kernel that I have provided. This is a quite stable and good kernel, but it's not sure that it's what you want. You should make your own kernel so you know what patches you need and what modules you can install when you really need them. Here are links to all sources and patches, and a step by step guide to compile your new kernel.
As for the installation we just have done, you have to boot from floppy. Would it not have been nice to be able to boot directly off the hard disk - and by the way, what about sound support? Let's set up this together as quickly as possible.
Before starting downloading files and compiling the kernel, check that you have these packages installed:
make gcc cpp glibc-devel ncurses-devel kernel-headers |
Note that the names of this packages may change slightly among the distributions.
We'll use the latest 2.4 kernel sources with a few patches, among those the IBM-E15 frame buffer patch from David Monro, which gives us a working frame buffer console able to run XFree86. This may sound complicated, but believe me, it's not. Follow the steps below here, and we'll get you up in an hour or so.
We're going to use the standard place for linux kernels, that is /usr/src/ . When downloading the kernel source and patches, place all files in /usr/src .
First we must get the working 2.4 source. To get this, we'll use the rsync tool, so check that you have it installed. Some nice people have set up an rsync server of the BitKeeper Linux/PPC development tree at source.mvista.com. Thanks so very much to them, remember them in your heart and prayers.
Note: You may use the standard Linux kernel source from any ftp.kernel.org mirror. A modern kernel like 2.4.21 should work allright. I've found the devel tree more well functioning on the 7248, so I stick with it.
Warning: Don't do this over a low-end link, like a modem. It'll take forever. So, let's rock and roll. Issue these commands:
cd /usr/src mv linux linux.old mkdir linux-2.4 ln -s linux-2.4 linux cd linux rsync -avz --delete source.mvista.com::linuxppc_2_4_devel . chown -R root.root . chmod -R u+w . |
Then, get David Monro's IBM E15 frame buffer patch from Leigh Brown's site page at http://www.solinno.co.uk/7043-140/files/2.4.19-2/
The next step is to patch the source files you just downloaded. First add the IBM E15 patch:
cd /usr/src/linux patch -p1 < ../030-e15fb.diff |
The details of configuring the kernel are way outside the scope of this document. To get more help, try The Kernel HOWTO. Here, we'll just cover the basics to get a working kernel. Download my kernel config file into the top directory of the kernel tree , /usr/src/linux .
In the top directory (/usr/src/linux) start the configuration program by issuing the following commands:
make ibmchrp_config cp ingvar.config-2.4 .config make menuconfig |
A thing you really should check, and possibly change, is the Initial kernel command string, located in the General setup submenu. This string is a space-separated list of options which are sent to the kernel at boot time. This is actually configuring the bootloader, and the closest we come to LILO, Grub or Yaboot on the 7248. Change the value of the root device to the device where your root (/) filesystem is mounted. This is done with root=device. An example could be root=/dev/sda3. If unsure, log in on another terminal and check with the mount command.
The 7248 is equipped with a built-in Crystal Audio cs4232 sound adapter. There is support for this adapter in the Linux kernel. When configuring the kernel, check that the settings for sound are correct. They should look like this:
Sound: Y
OSS sound modules: Y
Support for Crystal CS4232 based (PnP) cards: M
Some minutes ago we patched in a driver for the IBM E15 framebuffer driver. This is needed to run X (and to get a nice, smiling Tux when booting). If you for some reason don't want (or need) to run X, or you don't prefer a framebuffer console (it scrolls slower than standard VGA), remove support for the IBM E15 frame buffer in the Console drivers submenu.
To compile the kernel is quite straightforward. If you're not in there already, enter the linux directory in the top level of the kernel tree, and issue this command series:
cd /usr/src/linux make dep && make clean && make zImage && make modules && make modules_install |
Now it's time to install your fresh-baked kernel. On most Linux-based systems like, we keep kernels and their setupfiles in the /boot directory. Check what version you run with a look at the Makefile, and add proper version numbers in the commands below:
head /usr/src/linux/Makefile cp /usr/src/linux/arch/ppc/boot/images/zImage.prep /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21 cp /usr/src/linux/System.map /boot/System.map-2.2.18 |
dd if=/boot/zimage-2.4.21 of=/dev/sda1 |
mv /boot/System.map /boot/System.map.old ln -s /boot/System.map-2.4.21 /boot/System.map |
Before rebooting we must send some parameters to configure the sound modules. On YellowDog, SuSE and Mandrake, this is done in /etc/modules.conf. In Debian, use /etc/modutils/sound. Edit this file, and add the following lines:
alias sound cs4232 pre-install sound /sbin/insmod sound dmabuf=1 options cs4232 io=0x534 irq=5 dma=1 dma2=0 mpuio=0x330 mpuirq=5 |
There! We are ready to reboot. Light some candles (some people prefers to sacrifice chickens or even goats), remove the boot floppy, and issue the command:
reboot |
In this chapter we will set up X, if it does not work properly already.
To set up X, check that you have installed the following packages:
XFree86
XFree86-100dpi-fonts and/or XFree86-75dpi-fonts
gdm, kdm or xdm
Maybe more packages here...
apt-get install xserver-xfree86 xfonts-100dpi xfonts-base xbase-clients xdm |
Download my XF86Config-4.3, and copy it to /etc/X11/XF86Config. You can now start X with the command startx. On Debian you may start a graphical login screen with
/etc/init.d/xdm start |
/sbin/init 5 |
In this chapter there is a list of resources which include enough reading to make us experts in the field in record-time.
penguinppc.org our home for Linux on the PowerPC.
Kernel patches, utilities and hints for IBM PPC workstations with Carolina motherboard (like the 7248) by David Monro. (Including frame buffer support to actually get X up and working!)
Linux on the RS/6000 7043-140 another old but still popular IBM PReP Workstation. Page by Leigh Brown. This page also has E15 frame buffer patches for Linux-2.4.
Hollis Blanchard's page for installing Linux on the PowerSeries 850. Add this to David's and my pages, and you should be able to get LinuxPPC-2000 Q4 up on the 850 too :-)
The linuxppc mailing lists. Especially interesting is of course the workstation list.
PowerPC Linux project pages at sourceforge.net
More info about Linux on PReP machines by Kazunori Aoshima
IBM Sales Manual for the 7248-133 (Detailed description)
PReP specification documents from IBM
CHRP specification documents from IBM
Cross Development for Linux/PPC from i386 by Matt Porter
Of course, AIX should work like a dream...
Rumors have been spread that once up in a time, even Window NT and Sun Solaris could run on this machine. Oh, well. Don't.
NetBSD does of course work on PReP PowerPCs. It probably also works on your Remington typewriter from the early 50s. There is a a special page for our PReP architecture where the 7248 is mentioned explicit.
There are some things that might be added to this document. If you have comments, things to add or want to help, please send an e-mail to <ingvar@linpro.no>
Get rid of that annoying freeze at eth0 shutdown in 2.2 kernels. If you know something about this, please let me know. Another solution is of course to stop using 2.2.
Dual Boot with AIX. We need some kind of a bootloader. Does such a thing exist? Rumors says that Leigh Brown has something in the brewing.
Get midi to work. Is this possible?
In this final chapter I've included som frequently asked questions. This list should probably be much longer. Please let me know if you have something to add.
What is right, XF68 or XF86?
I have got a lot of questions conserning the name of the X-server in the installation program mentioned in older versions of this document. I have called it "XF68_FBDev". On some CDs the server has got another name, "XF86_FBDev". The reason for this naming convention and confusion is purely historical. The Linux Frame Buffer Device was first developped on m68k Macintoshes, and the XFree86 server for the device was hence called XF68_FBDev. Later on the Frame Buffer Device was ported to other platforms like the x86 clones and PowerPC. What is the right name? The question is left as an exercise for the reader.
How can I configure X so it removes the "snow" on my desktop?
The easy answer is: You can't. The kernel frame buffer device made by David Monro is still in an early stage, though working very well. Distortions in the picture when moving the mouse or scrolling a window are perfectly normal at eg 1024x768@60Hz. If you are a hacker, please fix it and post a patch to David or Leigh. We would all love it very much. note that lower resolutions like 800x600 og even 640x480 works great. And no, there are only 8bit colors availble.
How can I get my new ultra whizbang XYZ card to work?
The 7248 is a PC-like box with ISA and PCI interfaces, so one should think that using "normal" PC hardware made for the x86 platform should work flawlessly. Sadly to say, it doesn't always do. The drivers often have to be ported, and there are not that many Carolina motherboard kernel hackers out there. In addition, much hardware made for the x86 platforms uses BIOS calls to work properly. As the 7248 and its relatives does not have such a BIOS, it's extremely difficult to get this hardware to run under Linux.
That said, there are working hardware for this box that runs with Linux. For questions about this, please contact the Workstation list, see Section 11.
Update: With the latest versions of the Linux 2.4 bk development tree (NOT the official Linux 2.4 sources), many of the problems stated above are fixed, and much more hardware is supported. For example did I put a standard eepro100 card in my box, and it worked flawlessly. This means you can use the 7248 for example as a packet-filtering firewall. I've also heard rumours on plain standard ISA Soundblaster cards working. Try and see if your card works. If it's interesting, send me an email, and I'll put a note here. See Section 9 for notes on building and installing a 2.4 kernel.
Where should I mount the PReP boot partition?
To be able to understand the answer for this question, it's important that the reader understands how the 7248 boots into Linux. This is a three step procedure. First, the Firmware (which behaves in the same way as a PC BIOS) looks for something to boot. Usually, it should check the floppy drive, the CD drive, and then the first SCSI disk. On the SCSI disk it will look for a special partition called a PReP boot partition. On this partition, it will read the first program it can find there. If this is a Linux kernel bootloader, it will read and run this, and then the bootloader boots Linux. From here, Linux is in charge.
Many have asked where they should mount the PReP boot partition (the type 41 partition). This is a common misunderstanding. The PReP boot partition, usually located on /dev/sda1, should NOT be mounted anywhere. The files on this partition, usually only a single Linux kernel with a static linked kernel bootloader, are only used by the firmware when booting. The operating system does not use these files after the kernel has booted, so there is no need for mounting that partition.
Some people mix the meaning of the /boot directory and the PReP boot partition. Both use to contain kernels, but their use are different. /boot is used for storing kernels for later use, and for bookholding system info. The /boot directory is NOT read by the Firmware at boot time, so changing the contents of this directory does not change the way the Firmware loads Linux.
To be able to load a new kernel, you have to replace the existing kernel on the PReP partition. This is done with the dd command, see Section 9 for details.
The machine won't boot at all. I suspect the RAM could be the problem. What kind of RAM should I use for this box?
The 7248 and it's cousines with Carolina motherboard do use special RAM, more specifically, they use only parity RAM. The spesifications are as follows: 72-pin SIMM, 5 Volt, Fast Page Memory with Parity, 70 ns. David Monro states that is is possible to make Carolinas work with other types of RAM if you remove the cache. Look at Section 11 for details.
And now I thought it would work, but it stops at "Parity checking". I can't get a step further. Can you help me, please? Has this something to do with bad RAM chips? Or is it something wrong with my scsi devices?
You use a 2.2 kernel, don't you?
This message comes from the SCSI subsystem, so it has nothing to do with your RAM. Sometimes, by uknown reason, the Linux NCR driver in the 2.2-series caused the scsi controller to hang in some uninterruptible state, which endured, even bypassing reboot. The solution then was to boot AIX or even Windows NT for PPC (yes, such a beast exists, but you really don't want it), which resat the controller in proper condition. Alternatively, switch off the machine, pull out the battery inside, let it stay out for a couple of weeks or so, and fit things back together. The 2.4 driver fixed this problem.
Boot a 2.4 kernel, and you should be allright.
This could of course also be a real SCSI parity problem. If a 2.4 kernel doesn't help, check your SCSI devices for wireing and termination problems.
Here's how to update Yellow Dog Linux from 2.3 (Dayton) to 3.0 (Sirius). This assumes being done just after finishing the base install (ie: very few packages installed)
If we are running X (the following is based on the "base" install, so we probably aren't), switch to text mode (/sbin/init 3). We assume we have some network access, the fatter the better. We are going to download some packages manually, so check that you're able to do that. Some console-based download tool like ncftp (ftp) or lynx (http) might come handy.
Note for the following: If you get errors from rpm that are not noted here, you can always do an
rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__* ; rpm --rebuilddb |
First, ensure that we are running latest versions of all software. This may not be necessary, but whatever.
apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade |
rpm ftp://ftp.uninett.no/linux/yellowdog/apt 3.0 base main update rpm-src ftp://ftp.uninett.no/linux/yellowdog/apt 3.0 base main update |
apt-get update apt-get -s dist-upgrade |
rpm -e kudzu kernel-pcmcia-cs rpm-python yup yi pspell aspell groff man |
apt-get -s dist-upgrade again |
glibc-2.3.1-51a.ppc.rpm glibc-common-2.3.1-51a.ppc.rpm libelf-0.8.2-2.ppc.rpm popt-1.7-9d.ppc.rpm rpm-4.1-9d.ppc.rpm librpm404-4.0.4-8x.27.ppc.rpm apt-0.5.5cnc4.1-1b.ppc.rpm libgcc-3.2.2-2a.ppc.rpm libstdc++-3.2.2-2a.ppc.rpm expat-1.95.4-1.ppc.rpm fontconfig-2.1-3.ppc.rpm freetype-2.1.3-4.ppc.rpm XFree86-libs-4.3.0-2.1c.ppc.rpm XFree86-libs-data-4.3.0-2.1c.ppc.rpm XFree86-Mesa-libGL-4.3.0-2.1c.ppc.rpm |
rpm -e apt |
rpm -Uvh glibc-common-2.3.1-51a.ppc.rpm \ glibc-2.3.1-51a.ppc.rpm \ libelf-0.8.2-2.ppc.rpm \ popt-1.7-9d.ppc.rpm \ rpm-4.1-9d.ppc.rpm \ librpm404-4.0.4-8x.27.ppc.rpm |
rpmlib(PartialHardlinkSets) <= 4.0.4-1 is needed by glibc-common-2.3.1-51a |
rpm -Uvh --nodeps --force glibc-2.3.1-51a.ppc.rpm \ glibc-common-2.3.1-51a.ppc.rpm \ libelf-0.8.2-2.ppc.rpm \ popt-1.7-9d.ppc.rpm \ rpm-4.1-9d.ppc.rpm \ librpm404-4.0.4-8x.27.ppc.rpm |
rpm -qa |
rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__* rpm --rebuilddb |
rpm -qa |
If we don't have any special parameters for nsswitch and gconv-modules, we'll use the new ones (if existing):
mv -f /etc/nsswitch.conf.rpmnew /etc/nsswitch.conf mv -f /usr/lib/gconv/gconv-modules.rpmnew /usr/lib/gconv/gconv-modules |
rpm -Uvh apt-0.5.5cnc4.1-1b.ppc.rpm \ expat-1.95.4-1.ppc.rpm \ freetype-2.1.3-4.ppc.rpm \ fontconfig-2.1-3.ppc.rpm \ libgcc-3.2.2-2a.ppc.rpm \ libstdc++-3.2.2-2a.ppc.rpm \ XFree86-libs-4.3.0-2.1c.ppc.rpm \ XFree86-libs-data-4.3.0-2.1c.ppc.rpm \ XFree86-Mesa-libGL-4.3.0-2.1c.ppc.rpm \ |
killall -9 rpm rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__* rpm --rebuilddb |
mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.3.0.orig mv -f /etc/apt/sources.list.rpmsave /etc/apt/sources.list |
apt-get update && apt-get -s dist-upgrade |
apt-get install pam |
Unless you have done some special pam configuration, use the new values for system authetication. Then go on updating.
mv -f /etc/pam.d/system-auth.rpmnew /etc/pam.d/system-auth apt-get install passwd |
apt-get install kbd |
apt-get install compat-db compat-pwdb |
apt-get -s dist-upgrade |
apt-get -y dist-upgrade |
You may want to reinstall some packages again. For example "man" may become handy.
apt-get install kudzu rpm-python pspell aspell groff man |
SCSI harddisks are named with sdx, where x is a hardisk letter. The disk with the lowest SCSI ID on the first controller will become sda, the next lower sdb, an so on.
If you have IDE harddisks, they are called hda, hdb, hdc, and so on instead, where hda is the master disk on the first controller, hdb is the slave disk on the first controller, hdc is the master disk on the second controller, and so on.
GNU/Linux systems often uses a partition scheme inherited from MS-DOS. With this, a harddisk can have up to four primary partitions. If you want more, you have to make one of these an extended partition where you can make several logical partitions. The partitions are named with the disk they belong to, and a number. The first primary partition on the first SCSI disk is therefore sda1, the second primary partition is sda2, and so on. The first and second logical partition on an extended partition on the first SCSI disk is sda5 and sda6, and so on. If this makes absolutely no sense to you at all, try to read Section 16.
you start cfdisk from the command line with the command
cfdisk /dev/sdx |
cfdisk /dev/sda |
After you have started cfdisk you'll get an interface where the current partition table is listed with the names and some data about each partition, and some command buttons on the bottom of the screen. To change between partitions, use the up and down arrow keys. To change between commands, use the left and right arrow keys.
To delete an existing partition, highlight it with the up and down keys, select the Delete command with the left and right arrow keys, and press Enter.
To make a new partition, select the New command with the left and right arrow keys, and press enter. You'll get the choice between a primary and a logical partition. If you want a logical partition, the program will automatically make an extended partition for you. Then you must choose the size of the partition (in MB). If you can't enter a value in MB, return to the main screen with the Esc key, and select MB with the Units command.
To set the type of a partition, for bootable PReP, Linux swap or Linux ext2, highlight the actual partition, and select the Type command. You'll get a list over different types. Press space, and you'll get even more. Find what type you need, and enter the number at the prompt.
To be able to boot from a primary partition, you need to make it bootable. Highlight the actual partition and select the Bootable command.
When you are content with the layout of the disk, select the Write command. The partition table will be written to disk. Remember that this will destroy all data on partitions you have deleted or changed. You should therefore be very sure that you want to do this before actually press the Return key.
To exit the program, select the Quit command.
After several questions on what partitioning really is, I'll just quote an answer I gave in a mail once.
Okay, here goes:
In an operating system you need several different filesystems for several different applications. For example, you need a swap filesystem because your main memory can't hold all information the operating system needs, so some of it has to be temporary written to disk. You may also need some special filesystem from which the machine reads the operating system when you switch it on. Finally, you need of course one or more filesystems to store the operating system program files and your user files. It may be a good idea to put these in different places (ie. on different filesystems) in case you have to reinstall the operating system, but don't want to scratch all your work.
The best thing is maybe to have all these filesystems on different disks. But one has seldom more than one or two disks in a computer. So what we do is to slice up the disk(s) in several slices (partitions) and use the slices for several filesystems. Then the operating system mounts the filesystems together to one single file tree, so it is easy to access the files.
(Other operating systems, like MS-DOS and NT use some other technology: They do not bind the slices together to one file tree, but keeps them separate as "stations". What is the best scheme? You figure!)
Here a thought example with one 2GB disk on a 7248: The mount point shows where in the file tree a filesystem is mounted.
Partition Size Type Mountpoint Bootable ---------------------------------------------------------------- /dev/sda1 10MB 41 (PReP Boot) (Not mounted) yes /dev/sda2 150MB 82 (Linux Swap) (Not mounted) - /dev/sda3 1840MB 83 (Linux ext2) / (Root partition) - |
root=/dev/sda3 |
If you want, you could add own partitions for important directories like /home, /boot, /var, /usr/local and so on. Here is an other example with two disks, actually my own configuration with two disks:
Partition Size Type Mountpoint Bootable ---------------------------------------------------------------- /dev/sda1 20MB 43 (PReP Boot) (Not mounted) yes /dev/sda2 133MB 82 (Linux Swap) (Not mounted) - /dev/sda5 930MB 83 (Linux ext2) / (Root partition) - /dev/sdb1 315MB 83 (Linux ext2) /home - /dev/sdb2 770MB 83 (Linux ext2) /usr/local - |
root=/dev/sda5 |
ext2 is Linux' standard filesystem
GNU/Linux often uses the old partition scheme from MS-DOS. This means that if there are more than 4 partitions on one disk, one uses an extended partition (sda4) that may hold several logical partitions (sda5, sda6, sda7, ...)
Yes, my partition scheme is a bad one. My root partition was filled up in a couple of weeks or so. Don't use it. It is an example only.
Hope this clears up some things.
This appendix will show how to make SMS and firmware floppies from Linux or another UNIX-like operating system
Some people, like myself, seldom have access to boxes running AIX or MS-DOS, so I thought it could be handy to show how to make these utility floppies from a system running Linux (or any other UNIX like box).
To do this, you need the mtools package and the unzip program. Any reasonable Linux distribution should include these tools. I also use wget for downloading.
You will have to download the last version of SMS and firmware from IBM. If you want more information on the files, look here.
You also have to get a password to access the files. To obtain this, you have to agree to this EULA.
The downloaded file is nothing but a ZIP-archive in disguise. Download it to a suitable directory, and unzip ip like this:
mkdir ibmdownload; cd ibmdownload wget http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/mdownload2/7248100.exe unzip 7248100.exe |
In the contents of the archive, there's among the files another ZIP archive, containg the SMS software. Put the contents of this into a subdirectory like this:
mkdir sms; cd sms unzip ../sms107.exe |
mformat a: mcopy *.* a: cd .. |
mformat a: mcopy *.6xe a: mcopy p93h4940.im* a: cd .. |